of her mouth and could hardly believe she’d said it, especially in the back of a police car with a couple of detectives in the front seat. She was even more surprised when her fisted left hand shot out sideways and struck the door panel, just above the window crank.
Gustafson jumped a little behind the wheel. Hale looked back, face expressionless, then faced forward again. He might have murmured something to his partner. Rosie didn’t know for sure, didn’t care.
Gert took her hand, which was throbbing, and tried to soothe the fist away, working on it like a masseuse working on a cramped muscle. “It’s all right, Rosie.” She spoke quietly, her voice rumbling like a big truck in neutral.
“No, it’s not!” Rosie cried. “No, it’s not, don’t you say it is!” Tears were pricking her eyes now, but she didn’t care about that, either. For the first time in her adult life she was weeping with rage rather than with shame or fear. “Why won’t he go away? Why won’t he leave me alone? He hurts Cynthia, he spoils the picnic ... fucking Norman!” She tried to strike the door again, but Gert held her fist prisoner. “Fucking skunk Norman!”
Gert was nodding. “Yeah. Fuckin’ skunk Norman.”
“He’s like a ... a birthmark! The more you rub and try to get rid of it, the darker it gets! Fucking Norman! Fucking, stinking, crazy Norman! I hate him! I hate him!”
She fell silent, panting for breath. Her face was throbbing, her cheeks wet with tears ... and yet she didn’t feel exactly bad.
Bill! Where’s Bill?
She turned, certain he would be gone this time, but he was there. He waved. She waved back, then faced forward again, feeling a little calmer.
“You be mad, Rosie. You’ve got a goddam right to be mad. But—”
“Oh, I’m mad, all right.”
“—but he didn’t spoil the day, you know.”
Rosie blinked. “What? But how could they just go on? After ...”
“How could you just go on, after all the times he beat you?”
Rosie only shook her head, not comprehending.
“Some of it’s endurance,” Gert said. “Some, I guess, is plain old stubbornness. But what it is mostly, Rosie, is showing the world your gameface. Showing that we can’t be intimidated. You think this is the first time something like this has happened? Huh-uh. Norman’s the worst, but he’s not the first. And what you do when a skunk shows up at the picnic and sprays around is you wait for the breeze to blow the worst of it away and then you go on. That’s what they’re doing at Ettinger’s Pier now, and not just because we signed a play-or-pay contract with the Indigo Girls, either. We go on because we have to convince ourselves that we can’t be beaten out of our lives ... our right to our lives. Oh, some of them will have left—Lana Kline and her patients are history, I imagine—but the rest will rally ’round. Consuelo and Robin were heading back to Ettinger’s as soon as we left the hospital.”
“Good for you guys,” Lieutenant Hale said from the front seat.
“How could you let him get away?” Rosie asked him accusingly. “Jesus, do you even know how he did it?”
“Well, strictly speaking, we didn’t let him get away,” Hale said mildly. “It was Pier Security’s baby; by the time the first metro cops got there, your husband was long gone.”
“We think he stole some kid’s mask,” Gustafson said. “One of those whole-head jobs. Put it on, then just boogied. He was lucky, I’ll tell you that much.”
“He’s always been lucky,” Rosie said bitterly. They were turning into the police station parking lot now, Bill still behind them. To Gert she said, “You can let go of my hand now.”
Gert did and Rosie immediately hit the door again. The hurt was worse this time, but some newly aware part of her relished that hurt.
“Why won’t he let me alone?” she asked again, speaking to no one. And yet she was answered by a sweetly husky voice which spoke from deep in her mind.
You shall be divorced of him, that voice said. You shall be divorced of him, Rosie Real.
She looked down at her arms and saw that they had broken out all over in gooseflesh.
3
His mind lifted off again, up up and away, as that foxy bitch Marilyn McCoo had once sung, and when he came back he was easing the Tempo into another parking space. He didn’t know where he was for sure, but he thought